No Sparrows Allowed
by SiriuslyPeeved
Summary: Written for the Reviews Lounge, Too Green Room event, 2013. I always pictured the Bucket family living in Little Whinging near the Dursleys, they just seemed made for each other... Cruel as that may sound! I blame all the flower names.


**Disclaimer:** Yay, crossovers! I don't think anyone is going to get the mistaken impression that I'm meaning to infringe on anything.

**Author's Note:** Un-beta-read and un-Britpicked challenge piece for the RLt Green Room, 2013. Let me know of any major errors.

This story didn't turn out at all the way I expected. My original cracky plot bunny (Hyacinth vs. Petunia in a candlelight supper battle to the death) remains untouched!

My only clear AU element is moving the Bucket family, et al to Little Whinging. My hope is that this will work as roughly canon-compliant in both the Potterverse and in Keeping Up Appearances, because I would then get brownie points from the lovely miss EHWIES! Hope you enjoy.

**No Sparrows Allowed**

August 30, 1991

Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) knelt weeding the verge around her front garden. A voluminous flowered hat shaded her face from the late August sunshine, tied with a quality grosgrain ribbon bow in a fine periwinkle blue (purchased at a smart bargain, but no one needed to know that). A sparrow twittered in the perfectly squared-off hedge nearby. It dared to nibble at the fresh berries clinging to the needled branches. The tiny brown bird darted into the air, cruising like a fighter jet toward the hood of a blue sedan parked in front of the house.

"Don't you dare! You know better than that, you nasty little... Richard!" The woman commanded.

Richard opened the front door, leaning outside. "Yes, dear, what is it?"

"A bird has..." Hyacinth's mouth worked as she searched for the best way to express something so far outside the bounds of proper etiquette. Richard eyed his wife with trepidation. "Come closer, darling, and I shall tell you in the strictest confidence."

Richard padded out into the front garden and knelt beside his nearly insane, yet lovely wife. There were few things in the world lovelier than Hyacinth Bucket on a moral crusade. _You're even madder than she is,_ he told himself.

Hyacinth murmured directly into her husband's ear. "A bird has left its droppings on the car."

Richard strove to contain a violent burst of hilarity. "A bird just shat on my car?"

"Language, Richard," she snapped. "Do go and wash the car immediately before the finish begins to corrode."

"Corrode? From _bird_ droppings?"

Hyacinth pursed her face. "Surely you've seen what long-term exposure to the elements has done to Onslow's vehicle."

Richard chuckled, then bent down and kissed Hyacinth's worried forehead. "Darling, do not trouble yourself another moment. I'll be back in a jiffy."

"Could you stop by the garden centre as well, dear? Perhaps look at methods of keeping small birds out of hedges?"

Richard's face wrinkled into a fond smile. "I'll consult with them and see what they recommend." He left Hyacinth in the garden, plucking wilted petals from the roses and tunelessly singing Mozart.

Richard drove through the automatic car wash. Afterward he took time to dry the finish with a chamois cloth. He did like to take good care of his car; he was coming up on retirement from the Little Whinging council, and he and Hyacinth would soon need to be more careful with their finances. He thought of their son Sheridan (the cheeky beggar) and sighed.

"Cheerio, Bucket," greeted Vernon Dursley. Vernon's wife Petunia was Hyacinth's second cousin from the Cokeworth side of the family. Hyacinth had always rather looked down on the Evans girls as a result of their northern bringing-up. (Their father was a foreman in a _mill_, for goodness' sake, how lower-class could you get.) "Blimey, you're putting the shine on the old Rover. Got a hot date?"

"Shove off," Richard said amiably. He'd far rather drink in the grubbiest pub with Onslow than be stuck talking to Vernon Dursley at the car wash, and that was saying something. Richard had to keep the peace somehow or the next candlelight supper would be even more tormented than usual. "How are Petunia and the boys?"

Vernon shook his shoulders and grumbled. Richard knew that Vernon would rather not acknowledge the inescapable fact that not one, but two eleven-year-old boys lived at number four, Privet Drive.

"They're all right. Potter's off to school on the first. Taking him into King's Cross."

Vernon nodded toward his own car, parked with the doors open by the coin-operated hoovers. A scrawny black-haired boy in cockeyed glasses and droopy dungarees wrangled with the long hose.

"Sending Harry away?" Richard had never liked how the Dursleys treated their orphaned nephew, but Hyacinth adored cousin Petunia and her lump of a son and wouldn't hear any criticism. It wasn't Richard's place to get involved; he tried to think about it as little as possible.

"The boy has a scholarship," Vernon said shortly. "Some barmy old bin in Scotland. His _mother_ went there."

Vernon never mentioned Lily by name. Not when she and her sister had that awful row at Petunia's wedding, not when Lily failed to invite any of the Evans/Bucket connection to her own hush-hush nuptials, and not when she had rolled her car over on the M25 on Halloween night ten years ago, instantly killing herself and her young husband.

There was something rather odd about the Evans side of the family. After a few too many beers, Onslow let a few interesting tidbits slip.

"_When Lily was a little girl, she was always cryin'. 'Er face was even redder than 'er hair. Got called Cream o'Tomato Soup. Everybody was botherin' her all the time. I can't say she was a perfect kid, she was kind of spoiled and she sure did tattle on Tuney every chance she got, but she didn't deserve half of what she got at school."_ Onslow belched over his sudsy glass. _"Yep, after a while every kid who made fun of our Lily ended up gettin' sick. Nothin' serious… Quite a run on head lice shampoo when Lily was nine."_

Richard had laughed at the time, but he had rather liked poor Lily. With the family she was playful and funny, clearly a very bright young lady. As a young girl home from school, she indulged little Sheridan as he begged to try on her high - heeled boots and jewelry.

Lily and Petunia sang around the piano at Christmastime. Their harmonies darted in the air like the Andrews Sisters on the Bing Crosby record that rarely left their parents' turntable in December. After three or four cups of eggnog, Hyacinth joined her young cousins at the piano, banging out "_Mele Kalikimaka_."

"Oi there, Richard!" Dursley had gone faintly purple in the face waiting for his reply.

"Sorry. Say, do you know any way of keeping little birds from settling in a hedge?"

Vernon grinned and slapped Richard so hard on the shoulder, he gasped. "A revolver would do nicely. Potter!" he bellowed.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon?"

"Don't you mean, 'Yes, sir!'"

"Yes, sir." This was a subtly different Harry than Richard had seen before – not a boy beaten down by life, but someone with the air of patiently waiting out a bad time.

"Are you through?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is my car completely clean inside and out?"

"Yes, sir."

"It had better stay that way!" Harry slammed the back seat door behind himself before Vernon had finished speaking. "Won't be the least bit sorry not to see him 'till Christmas. On second thought, maybe they can _keep_ him for Christmas."

"You sure you're not up for a little fun next weekend?" Vernon poked Richard in the side with a fat finger. "Petunia's going to London shopping… sure we could persuade Hyacinth to go along and spend your money… Got some friends up that way, if you get my meaning…" Vernon winked.

Richard chuckled. "Vernon, I love my wife. God knows, I'd be halfway to Tahiti by now - by rubber raft - if I didn't love her. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

"But that leaves me so few options."

At the garden centre, Richard floated the possibility of purchasing nets or chemical repellents to keep birds out of the hedges. The girl behind the counter just laughed at him. He knew she would, but he could honestly tell his wife that he'd inquired.

When Richard returned home with a pristine vehicle, Hyacinth was in the kitchen making coffee for their next-door neighbor Elizabeth. Elizabeth threw him a tremulous "rescue me" look. Richard rolled his eyes. Elizabeth giggled and pretended to have been coughing.

"I'll take my coffee in a plain beaker, Hyacinth, really, you mustn't go to so much trouble…"

"Oh no, I insist, my dear Elizabeth! I've just refreshed my collection of Royal Doulton with hand-painted periwinkles."

"Guess who I ran into at the car wash, dear."

"Guess whom, Richard, whom."

"Your cousin Petunia's husband and his – ah –"

Hyacinth perked up. "My darling little Dudley?"

"No, the other one. Lily's boy… Harry. Off to school."

"Ah." Hyacinth's hands wobbled the slightest bit as she poured Elizabeth's coffee. A dark stain spread over the table. Elizabeth's blue eyes snapped open in alarm and she flailed for a tea towel.

Richard touched his wife's arm. "It's all right, Hyacinth. I have a feeling Harry is going to do just fine."


End file.
